Context, not Content, Is King

It’s a lovely time to be in or around media. Fewer and fewer of the old tropes apply. Metrics are out the window. Audiences fragment. Long tails emerge. Things are so uncertain that even that most bloated of sacred media bromides appears to be in the crosshairs: namely, that old saw about “content is king.” Don’t get me wrong, content is vital, but the unrelenting fragmentation of the mediascape has brought the importance of context to the fore. Many of us are still in denial.

We’ve all gone bananas creating content: branded, UGC, pretend UGC, interactive, reality. All the new paradigm-y, “you-either-get-it-or-you-don’t” stuff you could ever wish for. I’m in there too, of course, throwing around proclamations on the necessity for “participatory content” in the new media ecosystem. And then the dreaded question arrives: How will people know that this content exists?

Chucking in the word “viral” was the safe escape. “Well, we don’t know of course, but we think this has MASSIVE, viral potential.” Viral was nice because not only did it get us off the hook and into a la-la land of possibilities, it also held lovely budget connotations for the client.

(Reality) check please.

I’m all for content creation, new stuff, new formats, new, new, new! But there’s a surfeit of crap that drowns out even the most brilliant. Digital content providers hit us with one demographic presumption after another, and, with Panglossian glee, screech: “We’ve made this and now they will come! Moneybag marketers hand over the loot.” (“I mean, if Will Ferrell can … “)

Where marketers once did, now they don’t. They know that traditional media isn’t what it once was. They know the metrics aren’t great. They know all about time shifting, place shifting and viewer ADD. But for marketers, digital content has always been about the possibility of better and bigger: Better content, better reach, better connection and, maybe, bigger (even new) franchises.

If that’s true, then very little of the ocean of digital content out there, or the tsunami about to hit, cuts it. Me, I love to see squirrels with tiny little helmets scooting around on skateboards. And, I think that in a perfect world every brand would have its own original content destination that viewers/consumers would just crave to hang out in (and maybe the best finally will), but for the moment I think that the creative challenge and the commercial opportunity revolve around the context for a new marketing message, not the content. Again, quite simply, context, not content, is king. Without the platform, and the right one at that, you ain’t got nothin’.

We’ve been focusing on aggregating the now fragmented audience through different branded content that we wouldn’t see on broadcast media. We’ve sought (read: prayed) to achieve mass, broadcast-level scale via the content stickiness (going viral) rather than aiming for the right scale that the right media channel using the right content combined can bring to the right target. Why do you think NBC and News Corp. are brimming with pride at the early success of Hulu.com? It’s like not seeing the woods for the trees. We have a diffuse media landscape that gives us license to create, distribute and reach our sweet spot only to ignore it because we want to create our own mass content destination. I mean, is there not something sublimely ironic that the Bud digital content destination is called BudTV?

We’ve let ourselves be lured into the fantasy and ever increasing improbability of delivering mass scale through viral success rather than exploiting the better probabilities on offer via a plethora of discrete and better-targeted media environments — often with established brand equity and robust audience bases amassed through traditional platforms (like NBC and Fox, in the case of Hulu). Everyone talks about Hulu’s superior user interface and its repurposed and original content as the linchpin of its ability to drive traffic, but its meteoric success wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for its built-in distribution scale.